Writer

WRITING

Pat Dobie writes novels and short stories. Her passions include Victorian times, Meiji Japan, La Belle Époque and Hollywood Noir. Her writing often prowls the territory of alternative medicine, the power of thought, and how outsiders survive in a world that seems inimical. She’s into antique gadgets and physiological machines, has a special interest in addiction and mental illness and is keen on flawed protagonists.

Some of Pat’s current projects are:

NOVELS

Inventing Paris

Struggling newspaper illustrator and bad father Alec Ferguson runs into his former mentor Armel Duval en route to the 1889 Paris Exposition. All Ferguson knows is that Duval has with him an invention that he claims will change the world, and that he’s convinced someone’s following him—possibly on the orders of rival inventor Thomas Edison. Then Duval suddenly vanishes from the Paris train, leaving his still-unpatented invention behind, and Ferguson finds himself faced with the task of keeping the prototype safe. But which will kill him first: the thief who is already onto him, or his own addictions?

Shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society’s 2015 New Novel Award, for an outstanding unpublished novel.

Liquid World

Introvert and gifted underachiever Orson Sweet has always been protected from “reality” by his mother and his older brother Gregg. But when Orson suspects that a severed foot that washed ashore belongs to Gregg—who appears to have disappeared—he has to search for his brother and deal with the family secrets that emerge.

Mad Agnes

Agnes Walker comes to America to engineer an experiment on abusers of alcohol and opiates, of which 1893 Chicago has a plentiful supply . Her goal is to out-Kellogg Kellogg, out-Osler Osler, and develop her own patented “Walker Cure” for addiction. First hitch: she needs a supply of desperate subjects to run a trial that’s complicated and (to a society unaware of the mind-body connection) strange. Second hitch: as a woman, she can’t be taken seriously by the male medical establishment.

Short Stories

Pat’s short fiction is about unlaunderable stains, desperate old women, Ikea dwarves, yoyo championships and more.